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Being a crew member at JAOO
By Michael Dahl | June 30, 2008
My name is Michael Dahl and I am a student at the Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University (DAIMI). I have been asked to write a bit about how it is to be a crew member at the JAOO conference.
Normally you would have to pay to attend JAOO, but as a student you have the opportunity to sign up as a crew member and get free access, and all you have to do is work a few days. Needless to say, this is a great opportunity for anyone studying anything IT related.
Last year I attended as a crew member, and it was a great experience. The crew primarily consisted of students like me, from all over the world (actually also including a few of my study buddies from DAIMI), so we were a great big team of like minded people, and of course it was easy to start a conversation with anyone and everyone.
Besides having a great time with the other crew members while working, there of course were the
actual conference. Now, as a student the primary input is very, very theoretical, so one of the major
pluses for me, with the conference was the practical insight in the industry, and the possibility to
hear some of the smartest people in the industry share knowledge, learnings and opinions on current
trends and issues. And by doing a bit of extra work before the conference, as a crew member we got
access to tutorials (this is a whole day tutorial by a leading expert in a given subject). I choose to
attend the Ruby On Rails tutorial by Glenn Vanderburg, which proved to be a great introduction to
Ruby as a language, and the RoR framework – can you say “Everything is an object”.
And then there are the dinners. The last night of JAOO there were live music, and most importantly
Microsoft, Google and Sun were handing out free Danish brewed beer.
So all in all, it was a great experience and an awesome opportunity as a student. Needless to say I
have signed up as a crew member again this year, and hope to see you at JAOO 2008.
